12/03/2003

Andrei Kirilenko and DeShawn Stevenson scored 18 points apiece, and the Utah Jazz won their fourth straight game by holding off the New Jersey Nets 91-84 Monday night. Richard Jefferson led the Nets with 22 points. Jason Kidd added 15 points and Kenyon Martin 10 for New Jersey.

There are parts of the world so wild, so distant from places inhabited by people, that when things happen, they happen without witnesses. The traces slowly disappear; they melt with the snow in spring, get washed away by rain, carried off by ravens. Eventually, it becomes unclear whether they happened at all.

Paksas Impeachment VILNIUS, Lithuania -- Lithuania's parliament approved a report Tuesday paving the way for the impeachment of President Rolandas Paksas, who refuses to quit despite weeks of turmoil over allegations he had links to Russian mobsters. After a barrage of harsh words against the embattled president, parliament voted to approve the report, which says Paksas is a threat to national security, with a huge margin. A legally precise declaration will likely be presented to parliament next week detailing the impeachment charges, Homeland Union leader Andrius Kubilius said. Vote Fraud Warning MOSCOW (AP) -- With only five days left before parliamentary elections, Central Elections Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov warned local election officials Tuesday to resist any pressure to falsify voting results. ""Any attempt to distort voting results is an encroachment on democracy and constitutional principles,"" Veshnyakov said at a conference attended by election commissioners, Itar-Tass reported.

The liberal Yabloko party has been financed by former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky since its creation in 1993, but this year for the first time it has included top representatives of the oil company on its party list.

I've just come back from a two-week trip to Vladivostok, where I delivered several lectures at the local university. I have traveled extensively in my time, but this last trip left me with the most vivid impression of all. I'm not referring to the quality of higher education in the Far East, which as a matter of fact is quite high. In Vladivostok I learned a great deal about much more prosaic, and vital, matters.

If only overcoming political hurdles was this easy. Members of the International Women's Club of Moscow come from all over the world and speak dozens of different languages. But to make the annual IWC winter bazaar a success, they simply put aside their differences in culture, politics and religion, and get on with the work.

While the English term ""to tip"" is believed to stand for ""To Insure Promptness,"" the French pourboire and the German trinkgeld mean money given ""for a drink."" The idea is the same behind the Russian chayeviye, literally ""for tea."" The question is, how much should you tip your waiter to provide him with a nice cup of tea?